If You Could Have Only One Cookbook, What Should It Be?

By AMANDA HESSER

Published: October 2, 2011

It used to be you could say ''Joy of Cooking'' and be done with it. But do people nowadays really want to learn only American classics? Imagine eating muffins and chicken aspic for the remainder of your days!

In this age of plenty, when there are so many books, so many sources of good information, two easy and excellent recommendations are ''How to Cook Everything,'' by The Times's own Mark Bittman, and ''The New Best Recipe,'' from Cook's Illustrated. You'll have a resource for hundreds of basics and a lifeline for that water-to-rice ratio you always forget.

But is that all you want in a companion? Choose a sturdy, comprehensive book, and in seven years you'll find yourself cheating with the latest hot number from Andrew Carmellini.

For something that quickens your pulse, better, perhaps, to choose a book that focuses on a single cuisine or cooking philosophy, one that epitomizes the kind of cook you wish to be. Some masterpieces of the form include Patricia Wells's ''Bistro Cooking'' (1989), ''The Silver Palate Cookbook'' (1982) and Marcella Hazan's ''Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking'' (1992). The mother of them all, of course, is Julia Child's ''Mastering the Art of French Cooking'' (1961).

These books captured the aspirations of their generations. Hazan showed us that a dinner party didn't require a French sauce but could be pork braised in milk, a recipe with six ingredients. And each time I go back to ''Bistro Cooking,'' I feel a sense of gladness. Wellsshed light on a kind of French cooking that was unfamiliar at the time, getting us apple-pie lovers to consider the appletart and making us realize we were missing out on the potato's possibilities.

So what is the equivalent book for today's generation? For new-wave enthusiasts, it's ''Super Natural Cooking,''by Heidi Swanson; for the extreme-food crowd,it would have to be ''The Whole Beast: Nose toTail Eating,'' by Fergus Henderson; for mainstream moms, there's an Ina Garten book or two; and for the seasonal-cooking swarm, it's the Canal House Cooking series by the talented cooking-and- photography duo Christopher Hirsheimer and Melissa Hamilton.

The book I find myself flipping through whenever I'm looking for inspiration, though, is ''Sunday Suppers at Lucques,'' by Suzanne Goin, the Los Angeles chef whose dishes mash up the Mediterranean with California. Although her book is not withoutflaws, Goin understands the home cook's impatience with extended labor. I like that I can break her recipes down into engaging and manageable components. Take Leg of Lamb With Chorizo Stuffing, Romesco Potatoes and Black Olives, for example -- I can use the chorizo stuffing with other meats, serve the potatoeswith roasted cod and slather the romesco sauce on crostini. Or I can assemble Goin's Blood Orange, Dates, Parmesan and Almonds Salad, and arrange the ingredients loosely on a plate, a serving style that will remind me of the 2000s. And I can happily page through and savor the crisp photos of figs and dark woods and enameled pans -- colors and textures that I want in my kitchen.

If you really must have that single volume of basics, then try ''The Art of Simple Food,'' by Alice Waters. Suzanne Goin learned to cook at Chez Panisse, and Waters wrote the foreword for her book. Together they'll guide you through a lifetimeof relaxed farmers' market cooking -- about the best fix to American cooks' unflagging urge to simplify.